Today Scott and I met with the DCM (Deputy Chief of Mission) at the Embassy regarding my home business and the frustrations that I am having related to trying to get this thing off the ground.  Basically his response was…’get the plan and paperwork to us, set a goal for when you want to start seeing patients, advertise and see what happens!’

Finally, a voice of reason.  So I am putting the finishing touches on a few things, my plan and paperwork should be ready to submit by Monday at the latest, and hopefully I can start seeing patients in August.

Now if any of you reading this are in to graphic design I’d love some help with my logo….

If I could pick something to describe my mood today it would be this~

I am trying my hardest to get answers to my questions about starting a nutrition consulting business here in Baku.  It’s been a month now and I’ve finally found someone who is willing to help me get the answers and she is willing to go with me to the Ministry of Health.  Wonderful! 

They tell her I will need:

My diploma - um, that is in a box somewhere in a storage facility in North Carolina (I think).

My transcripts - ok.  I requested those from the University of Maryland and they should be coming in 3 WEEKS! Not that it makes a difference because the Ministry of Education isn’t doing any verifying until SEPTEMBER!

My license - Why don’t we get an actual license like a doctor or nurse gets?  I have this cheap thing that’s thinner than plastic but thicker than paper.  It isn’t my license it’s my Registration.  Oh, and my Registration card is in my Rolodex because we are told not to carry that with us.  Where is my Rolodex?  Good question and I think the answer to that is Belgium…I just paid another $50 to keep my RD status so I’ll be getting another great card to replace that Rolodex one in the mail probably sometime in August. 

My license is plastic, credit card size.  I have that with me because I just recently paid to renew my NC license so I got a new card.  I also have my ADA membership card which I usually don’t remove from the paper it comes on for fear of ripping it.  Yeah, I’m going to look like a real doosie walking in there with all of these documents!

I mean really, all I want to do is help people plan meals, modify recipes, lose weight and eat better.  Is all this really necessary?

Being an out of work RD sure is expensive.  I’m going to knit now.

Today we spent the day like tourists traveling out of Baku to Gobustan to see the petroglyphs and mud volcanoes and do a little geocaching.

We were on a tour that was arranged by the Embassy.  The group was larger than I thought it would be.  There were 18 adults and a handful of children.  I was so excited to get started on the trip.  I borrowed a GPS unit (eTrexLegend) from our neighbor because ours hasn’t arrived yet.  I programmed it with the location of the cache and watched the miles count down as we left the city of Baku and headed toward Gobustan.  

We went to the petroglyphs first.  The petroglyphs are ancient carvings that were discovered in Baku around 1940.  They date back to the time somewhere around the 12th-8th century.  Around 6000 carvings have been found. 

Before we were able to start our tour we were drawn in to the wedding celebration that was oddly enough taking place here in the dirt!  The bride didn’t look to happy about us crashing her celebration (maybe it was because her white dress was becoming begie), but the family/guests sure didn’t seem to care.  It was interesting to watch.  They danced in a big circle around the bride, clapping and singing.  I don’t know if the groom was present or not, if so he wasn’t easily identifiable (no tuxedo).

Most of the petroglyphs that we saw were of animals, people and boats.  There probably wasn’t much else going on back then to report on.  There was a gathering scene which was interesting because it was very near the musical stone (you hit it with a river stone and it makes musical tones) which makes sense that people would gather in this area to dance in celebration of whatever needed celebrating such as a successful hunt.

Other scenes were of pregnant women, animals and boats

The scenery was really beautiful.

I can’t post all of the pictures here, but I will upload them to a web album (that will take me a few days) for you all to view if you want to. 

Out of no where came a rain shower and while I thought it was refreshing, not everyone felt the same and we headed back to the vehicles and made our way to the mud volcanoes.

Now my MAIN reason for wanting to go on this trip was to search for the geocache that is hidden at the mud volcanoes.  I wasn’t sure if being on a tour would be the best time to do this because of time, amount of people, etc.  Thankfully we were in a private vehicle so we didn’t have to leave with the rest of the group. 

The mud volcanoes were interesting.  I assume there is some sort of gas that is pushing this mud up and making it bubble and erupt.  Note the gas gave a small popping sound when one of the guys put his lighter to it (maybe methane?)

Here is evidence of a recent eruption

and couple of mud volcano pictures.

Ok so, after I took these pictures it was time to do some geocaching.  I started the Tales from the Trails blog so that Scott could give his buddies a blog address and they wouldn’t have to sift through all of my banter and knitting related news to find what they were looking for.  I will make a link from my post on this blog to that blog when I post there.

On the way home we stopped to take pictures of the oil literally oozing out of the ground here.  CRAZY!

So that’s it for this first adventure.  I’m sure there will be many more to come.  One thing we did decide today is that we probably won’t be auditioning for the Amazing Race anytime soon!  : )

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year.  Today I’m thinking about you and remembering some of the things that you enjoyed and some of the things that remind me of you.

Mary Lou Fowler

February 3, 1909 - July 17, 2007

Well not really all about it, but some more pictures of around town.

First I want to start with a few pictures of the Azeri National Bird.  You’ve heard me mention it before, I think I even posted a picture, but somehow I really don’t think you have grasped the seriousness of the problem.  We are being OVER RUN by these things.  Here’s proof:

We saw this flock on our drive out to find a new restaurant that we’d heard about.   Once you get past the initial shock of the Azeri National Bird plastic bags the scenery at times is really beautiful.

One of the prettiest areas near the Old City is called Fountain Square (it’s also the most crowded).  When you are in this area you really feel like you are in Europe. Here you will find shopping, restaurants and entertainment (movie theaters, go-carts, bars, people watching, etc). 

There is also that animal population that I’ve talked about.  You cannot enjoy a meal outside because you see things like this:

  or this

It really breaks my heart to see so many homeless animals.  These two were very playful and entertaining so it wasn’t quite as heartbreaking.  They even managed to score a few morsels from the table behind us and somehow some of Scott’s (he who doesn’t like cats) calamari ended up behind him on the ground….hmmm.  We were eating at the Mediterranea restaurant near the Maiden Tower and did have entertainment provided by some local musicians during dinner.  I’m not quite sure what type of music it was, it had kind of an Islamic, Mediterranean/Caribbean sound to it….anyway, it was fun and the atmosphere made me forget I was in Baku (except for the wind). 

Other animal sightings are just plain bizarre,

These are two different groups (flocks) of sheep.  I had heard abou them but never seen them until this day that I took Allison for a walk to our new local market.

Well, at least now the Mystery of “Where’d That Poop Come From” has been answered.

Other animal sightings however are simply to keep me entertained.  Poor Max.  Stay tuned for those pics.  The subject is not being cooperative right now… : )